Extraordinary Life: A Passionate Advocate For The Homeless

By Anne M. Hamilton

|Special to The Courant|

Oct 07, 2018 | 6:00 AM

Brian Baker, the assistant director of South Park Inn in Hartford, speaks here during the homeless shelter's Flag Day ceremony and barbecue in June 2016. Baker died June 11 this year at age 54. (Patrick Raycraft | Hartford Courant)

Brian Baker’s vocation evolved, but never really changed. His years at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield were meant to be a prelude to the priesthood, following the example of his uncle, Father John Varley. Instead, Baker ended up spending his working life as a passionate advocate for homeless people.

The challenge might seem overwhelming, solutions too elusive, but occasionally there were bright spots. A former resident would return, happy to have found a job, or sobriety. “That’s what energizes you,” said Dave Duverger, an employee at the South Park Inn, a shelter on Main Street in Hartford.

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Baker’s college volunteer job at South Park turned into a 34-year long career. As assistant director, Baker was eager to spread the word not only about a homeless person’s challenges, but how anyone, from Cub Scout to state legislator, could help. “He was the face of South Park Inn,” Duverger said.

Baker, an Enfield resident, died June 11 of a pulmonary embolism precipitated by an ankle injury. He was 54 years old.

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Although he had never served in the armed services, he was particularly attuned to the plight of homeless veterans. After learning that the Veterans Home and Hospital in Rocky Hill was turning away homeless Vietnam vets, Baker helped organize a rally to draw attention to the problem. Hundreds of veterans and supporters attended, and within weeks, the policy was rescinded.

“He had such a single-minded focus on veterans’ homelessness before anyone was talking about it in a serious way,” said Susan Campbell, a Courant columnist who has written frequently about Baker’s work.

The shelter opened in 1982 under the leadership of Mary Lovelock and John Ferrucci. Baker began volunteering there while he was a student at Central Connecticut State University completing his undergraduate degree in social work after attending St. Thomas. He was soon hired by the shelter, and never left.

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Baker, born on May 31, 1964, spent his early years in Holyoke, Mass., the third of Edwin and Mary Baker’s six sons. His mother was a nurse and his father had served in the Air Force and owned rental property in Springfield, where Brian learned how to repair most house problems — skills that served him well at the shelter. After Fermi High School in Enfield, he enrolled in the seminary, where he and many of his friends thought they eventually would enter the priesthood.

His plans for the future evolved. “He realized it wasn’t for him,” said Florence Baker, his wife.

At the shelter, which is near the corner of Park Street in Hartford, Baker was indefatigable. He could start the day with a breakfast talk to potential volunteers, work a full day — going to the Legislative Office Building to lobby for a bill that would help the shelter, cleaning out the basement when the septic system failed — and then head off to an evening meeting to talk to scouts who were collecting personal items for the residents. He’d solicit donations and give residents rides. On Sundays, he would visit different churches in the Hartford region, asking for help preparing an evening meal, a donation of clothes or help painting or landscaping. His wife chided him for his intense work schedule, but he resisted most of her entreaties.

Once a week, he would hit the streets at 6 a.m., driving around town for four hours in search of people who had spent the night outside. He would drive through parks, go to highway overpasses, to abandoned buildings and down to the banks of the Connecticut River, armed with socks, sandwiches and fruit, hoping that food would help him forge a link with people suspicious of do-gooders. “I work for a shelter,” Baker would say. “We can help you.”

“Some days were great, and some days were frustrating,” said Duverger, who has taken over the shelter’s Outreach mission. Aaron Jones, who began as a volunteer, remembers a trip with Baker after receiving a report that a homeless person was living in a Hartford park. They walked for 3 to 4 hours and finally found a campsite. Baker left his card and returned with a sleeping bag and boots. He made four or five trips; he hated to give up.

The shelter operates 118 beds, which are usually all occupied. The rules require people to register beforehand, to show up no later than 6 p.m., and to leave by 8 a.m. After two weeks at the shelter, a case manager assesses a guest to make plans for the future. Some guests can move into a transitional living space operated by South Park. Baker “would never say no,” said Duverger, who also started as a volunteer and has worked at the shelter for more than 20 years. Baker was always willing to accept his guests’ limitations and make exceptions — such as giving out a bus pass, even knowing the guest might try to sell his pass. “He should have said no a lot of times, but he didn’t,” Duverger said.

The twice-weekly medical clinic at the shelter, organized by Baker, began as a student’s senior project 30 years ago. Today, medical students, as well as dental and pharmaceutical students, take turns staffing the clinic under the guidance of Dr. Bruce Gould, UConn Medical School’s associate dean for primary care. “Brian was unstoppable and effervescent,” Gould said. The students diagnose and treat minor illnesses and wounds, and refer more serious problems to Community Health Services.

In a partnership with Hartford Hospital, Baker arranged for several shelter beds to be set aside for patients who are ready for discharge but have no place to live, “a safe place to continue recovery,” said Tina Inferrera, psychological services coordinator. “He was kind to everyone. When they came in off the street and they smelled terribly, it didn’t matter to Brian. He was always the same to everyone.”

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Baker was a modest man who shrugged off recognition, such as the designation of March 3, 2010, as Brian Baker Day in the state by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell, but he never stopped advocating for the shelter.

Baker met his wife, Flo, when she was working for a not-for-profit group that built housing. “I had to reach out to all shelters,” she said. She spoke frequently with Baker about South Park and its facilities — but the calls were strictly business. One time he called and asked to meet her on a Friday. She thought he meant during lunch hour, when she used to troll the G. Fox department store. “I’m shopping,” she replied. “No way.” He explained that he meant after hours, and “it evolved from there,” she said.

After their marriage, he brought up her daughter from a previous marriage, and they had a son, Kyle. Baker had grown up driving around the country in a station wagon with his parents and five brothers, always tent camping and subsisting on egg salad and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Early in their marriage, Brian and Flo drove to Florida and camped — until Flo realized you could get there in three hours by plane, and they put away their tent.

Baker had been on the cross-country team in high school, and continued running, enlisting all his old friends for the yearly St. Patrick’s Day road race in Holyoke, “no matter what shape they were in.” At UConn Health, the road race was dedicated to him this year. The money it raises buys thermometers and routine medications for the shelter’s clinic.

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Baker is survived by his wife; their daughter, Iliana Figueroa, and son, Kyle Baker; his granddaughter, Penelope; and his five brothers.

A devout Catholic, Baker exemplified compassion in his work with homeless people, Duverger said. “You have to have empathy or sympathy. Why would you want to belittle them more than they are already feeling?”